


After Life

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, Nohr | Conquest Route, Spoilers, if everyone didn't already know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 22:42:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11838504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	After Life

In the afterlife, there is no pain. This is what Takumi first notices when he passes. He should have felt his body suffer the force of the ground after his fall from the Great Wall, but instead there was nothing.

 

Takumi has no body to feel with. He is no longer made of physical material. He has no skin for touching, no nerves for sensing, no brain for interpreting and understanding stimuli. He is only a soul now. He does not know what he looks like, but this is not something he finds especially alarming because it seems to be the norm here.

 

Souls do not have faces. They do not have colors, nor do they have features distinct to cultures they used to represent on Earth. This is a troublesome thought, as Takumi is unable to recall what culture on Earth was. He passes a couple dozen souls along his way. They do not interact with him. He is not familiar with any of them, and this gives him some relief, though it is an unusual sort.

 

His memories are hazy, and are fading to nothing. When people say ignorance is bliss, perhaps this is what it is referring to. Indeed, this is how the afterlife achieves painlessness. It seems as though happiness must always have been at least somewhat bittersweet, for now it is unimaginable to know it without having felt sorrow.

 

Here, there is only peace, and in peace other emotions are muted. There is no anger to boil. There is no joy to celebrate. With no memory, there is no mourning. There is no knowledge of who remains, and who continues to fight. Now, Takumi does not remember faces, and neither does he recognize souls.

 

But Fujin is different—it is a god, a voice. Fujin is inanimate, confined to an object. It is linked to Takumi’s soul, now halfway between this world and that from which he came. Fujin is a thin blue light stretching between two worlds, calling to him so that he may fulfill one last duty before truly passing on, before all memory is lost for good, before the feelings that he has just discovered as barely burning embers are snuffed out for good.

 

Time does not exist. This holds true in the middle world. Takumi seems to wander between the illusions of grass and sky for ages. But there is no past, no present, no future. Only Fujin is vaguely aware of time, to the extent of understanding what needs to be done and when it is too late.

 

There is a figure Takumi recognizes standing in the grass, but he wonders if it is an illusion just like everything else, for nothing truly exists here—nothing but souls. His senses of sight and hearing are also nothing, but Fujin perceives these for Takumi. He is a blind, deaf man being lead by the tug of a string. Fujin weaves him a temporary body; plays a temporary voice for him, well-rehearsed, as if time did not exist for Fujin either, or if it did then it must have long ago predicted Takumi’s journey.

 

Fujin is Takumi’s last connection to his previous world, as Raijin seems to be for Ryoma. However, he does not know what allows his mother to materialize here. Corrin is here, too. Her connection to Takumi’s former life is strong, Fujin informs him, and it is forged through Yato.

 

Corrin will not follow Takumi, and Takumi cannot follow Corrin. Fujin makes a request, and because it has been the closest of Takumi’s allies, he follows through with what might be his toughest decision—for now the memories return, and with them a desperate need to keep them close. With Fujin newly in his hands, the memories rush to his mind, the feelings fill him up again, and he knows pain once more. He remembers regret, anguish, and sorrow. But he also feels hope, and with it, love that was never spoken of, never acknowledged.

 

Takumi passes Fujin to Corrin, leaving his strength and memories in her hands. He leaves his hope in her hands.

 

Everything quickly fades, and he is a soul once again, with no recognizable body, no feelings, no memories. It all leaves him quickly, as does Corrin following parting words and tears. But before everything is completely gone, Takumi experiences catharsis for the first time. He does not remember it soon after, as it is replaced by peace. He forgets pain once more, and with it he forgets love.

 

When Takumi forgets, this time it is absolute. He can no longer recall his siblings' care, his gratitude toward his retainers, or the feeling of Fujin in his hands. There is nothing to tie him back to Earth now. His mind is lost. He has no motive. There is no life. There is not even an after, for there is no time.

 

For Takumi, there is peace. And in another world, there is hope.


End file.
